advertisement

Man charged with threatening to kill Ind. governor

FORT WAYNE, Ind. — A northern Indiana man was accused Thursday of mailing letters threatening to kill Gov. Mitch Daniels and the executive director of Indiana's anti-smoking agency if they didn't stop promoting workplace anti-smoking campaigns.

Michael O'Brien, 45, of Howe is charged with threatening to kill Daniels "like John F. Kennedy" and Karla Sneegas, executive director of Indiana's Tobacco Use Prevention and Cessation board, with a baseball bat. He's accused of making the threats in letters sent last August that are filled with profanities and epithets and tell Sneegas: "We are watching you."

Magistrate Judge Roger Cosbey read the charges against O'Brien on Thursday and ordered him held until a detention hearing Tuesday.

According to the criminal complaint, O'Brien told state police he wrote the letters but said the threats weren't serious. When asked why he sent a letter to Daniels, O'Brien said it was because Daniels was raising taxes and pushing an anti-smoking campaign.

"I wasn't going to hurt anyone. I just sent things anonymously," he said.

Daniels and federal public defender Thomas O'Malley declined comment Thursday.

The criminal complaint alleges O'Brien also sent threatening letters to the two most recent coordinators of LaGrange County's anti-smoking program dating back to 2009. The complaint also alleges that a threatening telephone call to the current coordinator was placed Feb. 11 from a telephone booth just outside O'Brien's place of work in Topeka.